News from Journals: Awards, Editorial Changes, and New Issues

The Journals: Management and Publishing Solutions department (J:MaPS) is beginning a new adventure: exploring the world of blogging! This monthly J:MaPS update will inform you of the latest news including awards, editorial board changes, and new issue releases. This month’s highlight is award winning journal, Nineteenth-Century French Studies.

The beginning of the New Year brought a significant achievement for a UNP journal. The Nineteenth-Century French Studies (NCFS) was awarded the Council of Editors of Learned Journals’ (CELJ) Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement at the Modern Language Association’s 2017 conference. This award is given to the most improved journal that has “launched an overall effort of revitalization or transformation within the previous three years.”

Nineteenth-Century French Studies submitted an application last fall to illustrate why they were worthy of the award by highlighting all of their recent changes. The most significant change was the journal’s change in editor, from Marshall Olds to Seth Whidden in 2014. This was the beginning for progress, allowing for more modern updates to NCFS, which was founded in 1972, and to expand its audience base. Next came the adjustments to the editorial board. While still composed of some of the top scholars in French Studies, the board developed a more active role in evaluating the content.

Among the editorial shifts, the limit on article length was increased from 5,500 to 7,000 words and three new initiatives were added. These initiatives include a focus on more in-depth research with a study, creating a dialogue on important issues between colleagues and beyond the journal, and reflecting on the foundational works that have paved a way for growth in the field. These initiatives will center each volume, and their goal is to bring further discussion and research to a seemingly narrow yet important explanation of significant texts. This will help to exemplify the main issues regarding the discipline.

Lastly, Nineteenth-Century French Studies made a major update to their website. They enlisted graduate students from the fields of Computing Sciences, Hispanic Studies, and History to aid the editorial board in developing wider access to the journal’s content. Every NCFS book review became accessible to anyone with no subscription required, and an archive of PDFs containing the Tables of Contents from the first issue was created. According to NCFS, “the new online platform creates broad, seamless access to the journal… [and] benefits from increased visibility thanks to its new Wikipedia pages.”

The award brought excitement and a sense of pride to the editor, Seth Whidden, the editorial board, contributors to the journal, and the University of Nebraska Press.